Friday, March 9, 2012

Heat treated supermarket honey

Peter
Bray of Airborne Honey Ltd (NZ) has sent a well written statement
about the heating of honey and the loss of quality. The quality of honey on NZ shop selves varies. Imported honey (currently happening, but illegal) is imported because it is cheap and therefore quality will be much lower than "home-made". You should note that honey is bacterial resistant and does not require processing to make it safe.

I will say more on this topic of heating honey later. Please comment below and tell me what you think and how it works for you.

Keith

“The
question on heating, raw, pasteurized etc. is the single biggest
question we get from consumers. Since there is no legal
definition of "raw", it is difficult to compare claims.
Some think raw is "uncooked", "unheated" etc. To
others it is closer to "raw materials" in meaning.

However
retail honey is usually presented with visible impurities removed
(bees legs, wings, wax particles etc.) and in a processed state
- it has been extracted, packed in bulk containers (drums, pallecons
etc) re-liquefied, strained, perhaps creamed, and then packed into
retail containers. The degree of heating to liquefy and the
amount of filtering or straining is where most changes can occur with
the removal of pollen, reduction of enzymes, volatiles and other
flavouring agents etc.

The
US market is unusual that virtually all honey is sold in a liquid
form, even when the sources are fast crystallizing honeys such as
Canola. To achieve this they filter all particles (including
pollen) from the honey that might act as a nucleus for crystals to
form around. They also heat it to ensure that all crystals are
liquefied. Here in New Zealand, more than half of the market is
creamed honey (crystallized) so fast crystallizing honeys can be
processed into creamed honey products and slow crystallizing honeys
turned into liquid honey packs.

As
you know Airborne has a patented liquefication process for our
honey. We assess heat damage by routinely measuring HMF (see
http://www.airborne.co.nz/HMF.shtml) on every incoming sample and
every outgoing product we produce plus we collect and measure samples
of various honey brands from supermarket shelves all over New Zealand
for HMF along with a range of other parameters including pollen.

We
can say definitively from this process that some manufacturers are
removing significant amounts of natural pollen from honey in New
Zealand and some are applying significant amounts of heat. This
is not consistent but overall it is significant.

So
How Do We Stack Up?

We
know that Airborne's HMF levels are consistently the lowest in the
country - a reflection on the lack of heat induced changes in our
product. Our average is 6ppm for our finished products and the
country average for other manufacturers is 27ppm. Some products
are over 100ppm (our standing record was 1,132ppm!) and there are
many over the EU regulated limit of 40. However not all this is
due to processors damaging the product they are handling. There
is still a significant amount of damage done by beekeepers at
extraction time and during storage. Some of this is deliberate
due to beekeepers storing their "manuka" honey at elevated
temperatures in and effort to increase their NPA scores, a natural
reaction to being paid on those scores (rather than on quality
parameters assuring a manuka source).

For
our own products we print the HMF and pollen levels on each and every
jar so consumers can see for themselves the quality they are getting.

If
consumers are interested in the quality of their product, they should
read the labels carefully, and read any material that the
manufacturer makes available, websites being a prime source.
They should also contact the manufacturer if they have any further
queries.